When discussing metaphors, it’s worth mentioning the notion of magical archetypes, as found in all storytelling traditions, in mythology and folklore. An archetype—defined as an original prototype of a certain kind of character or personality—is a familiar cultural representation throughout history. We all know and recognize general archetypes: the gruff detective, the clever thief, the saucy waitress, the smart-alecky kid, the naive ingénue, the holy fool, the whore with a heart of gold. And if we think of magical power archetypes, there’s the shaman healer or witch doctor, the wise sage on a mountaintop, the wicked witch, the trickster, the magician, the mysterious priest, the dark overlord. All of them are faces of power, aspects of being, familiar to us since childhood, from stories and the media.
So why not consider a new power archetype to add to our imaginary lineup?
The handyman.
Because we can all use the help of one, now and then. And because we all admire a truly proficient handyman’s—or handywoman’s—prowess deep down in our heart of hearts. Even when we don’t want to admit it.
None of us can fix every aspect of our lives. Sometimes, despite our best intentions, things go wrong. We yearn for the ability to undo what has been done, to start fresh and to control the details. So when we find someone who can, it’s the most exciting and admirable and, yes, attractive thing in the world.
So this is the secret. This is how magic works its sneaky attraction upon the Charmed Ones and upon us. When it’s flashy and sparkling and dangerous, it’s only a crush. So is the lure of power or immortality or the promise of untold riches. It might take our breath away for a quick wild ride, but it leaves behind emotional garbage and debris in the form of loss and pain. When all the glamour-dust settles, it’s the quiet, steady, even seemingly stodgy and unremarkable force that stays true, with all its healing, repairing, regenerative, all-capable wonder. It makes an impact and keeps us anchored, safe, together. We bask in the trusty handyman magic, and we are drawn to it.
Indeed, nothing’s more attractive than the freedom of being able to do serious damage and outright destruction to your safest place, your personal anchor, without consequence, over and over again—and then possess the ability to make it all right.
Sort of takes you back to being three and carefree and playing in that sandbox. Imagine never having to worry about that leaky sink again. Or that empty place inside, that need-spot which nestles near the heart.
Because magic itself is the metaphor of life’s perfect fix, the perfect solution. And it is so subtle that even a wise Wiccan witch may not know the full extent of its repercussions.
Consider this: The Charmed Ones recite a spell to rid the Manor of Evil (“Thank You For Not Morphing”):
When in the circle that is home,
Safety’s gone and evils roam,
Rid all beings from these walls,
Save us sisters three,
Now heed our call.
As the spell is cast, truth about their father is revealed while the evil shape-shifters are vanquished. Yadda, yadda, spell succeeded on all levels, everyone thinks, and they go on with their lives after picking up the chunks and mopping up the mess.
But—just maybe—that was only one part of it. As in, that was just spell part A, and the true effects are still ongoing and far-reaching. Because later that same day a handyman knocks on their door.
Leo Wyatt is here, to repair the door to the attic, and repair their lives.
Part of the magic? Spell part B? You decide.
Either way, you can be sure that from now on nothing will stay broken for long.
Vera Nazarian immigrated to the USA from the former USSR as a kid, sold her first story at seventeen and has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, seen on Nebula Awards Ballots, honorably mentioned in Year’s Best volumes and translated into seven languages.
A member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, she made her novel debut with the critically acclaimed Dreams of the Compass Rose (Wildside Press, 2002), followed by Lords of Rainbow (Betancourt & Company, 2003). Look for her novella The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass with introduction by Charles de Lint from PS Publishing and her collection Salt of the Air with introduction by Gene Wolfe from Prime Books, 2005. Visit her Web site at www.veranazarian.com.
GOOD WITCHES NEED LOVE, TOO!
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ALISON KENT
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They’re young, they’re beautiful, they date hot guys . . . you’d think the Halliwells lived in a chick-lit kind of world. Alison Kent studied season one and found that each of the sisters approached her love story differently, but they all ended the same way: teary-eyed, undefeated and supported by their sisterhood.
WHETHER A WITCH by reputation or through inherited powers, every girl deserves a little love.
It could be argued, in fact, that witches may need even more than most women considering the constant uncertainty in their lives—uncertainty that is about more than filling a social calendar, hitting upcoming sample sales, making ends meet or balancing overtime with aerobics.
Seriously, what woman wouldn’t want a strong, supportive man to turn to at the end of a long day spent battling warlocks and sorcerers, demons and ghosts?
Picture it. An intimate wine and candlelight dinner (or even burgers and fries by flashlight) over which to discuss the latest auction house acquisition or exclusive catering booking or shape-shifter annihilation. Follow that with a nice back rub or foot massage before cuddling up to a big male body and letting him, like Calgon, take you away.
Mm, mm, mm. All the stuff that makes romance fiction romance fiction. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl—though, in the romance genre’s current climate, the story arc is just as likely to be girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl wins boy.
Having written romance now for a dozen plus years and followed the shifts in what the market will bear, as well as what readers expect in a contemporary heroine, the Halliwell sisters have for me been the perfect example of single female twenty-somethings seeking. Well, plus magical powers.
Whether struggling to find their place in the world, working to balance a demanding career with a personal life, or learning to accept the weight of their family heritage, the Halliwell sisters are no exception to the age-old quest of a woman seeking a mate.
Neither were the writers of Charmed shy in their employment of the romance genre’s conventions, tenets and clichés when crafting the show’s first season. Watching the original twenty-two episodes again, I was struck anew at how each sister exhibited characteristics of a female protagonist seeking love, companionship, intimacy and that Jerry Maguire completion—yet how each was drawn as an individual, approaching the dating game from a perspective unique to her own personality, her desires and her preferences when it came to the opposite sex.
That individuality, in fact, lent itself to plot lines and continuing story arcs that encompassed the broad spectrum of romance as a genre, from mainstream women’s fiction to chick-lit to almost—just almost—the traditional romance novel with its happy ending. Yet, Charmed Ones or not, the sisters figured out quite quickly that their powers were good, as Prue said, “for everything but our love lives.”
So why, in those early days (pre-Piper and Leo, pre-Prue’s death, pre-Paige’s appearance), did things continually go wrong on the Halliwells’ road to romance? Were their failures to find—or accept—true love based solely on wrong choices in men? Were the sisters themselves simply not ready for what came their way? Or did their magical powers create an obstacle too big for romance to overcome?
Their belief in the power of love appeared in the first season’s sixth episode (“The Wedding from Hell”) when, after sending the demon goddess Hecate and her demonette posse back where they belonged and reuniting bride-to-be Allison with her fiancé Elliott, Piper wondered aloud if she, Prue and Phoebe would live happily ever after. Phoebe’s answer? That if Allison and Elliott could do it, so could th
ey. To that, Prue replied, “I guess true love does conquer all.”
In the previous episode (“Dream Sorcerer”), after Prue told her sisters that since men wanted the unattainable, the three of them needed to stop trying to please the opposite sex and focus on what they wanted instead, Phoebe stated that she wanted “tons of fun, lots of heat and no strings attached,” while Piper responded that no matter how un-pc it was, she preferred, “romance, long, slow kisses, late night talks, candlelight,” ending with a sigh and a declaration that she “love[d] love.”
During the same episode (and obviously having ignored Prue’s directive), Piper agreed to go along with Phoebe in casting a reversible spell found in the Book of Shadows, one that would enable the sisters to attract lovers. Sitting at the low table in the attic, they read aloud one another’s wish lists for what they want in a man.
First, Phoebe went over Piper’s list, reciting, “You want a man who is single, smart, endowed . . . employed. A man who loves sleeping in on Sundays, sunset bike rides, cuddling by a roaring fire and late night talks. A man who loves love as much as you do. Wow, you’re a romantic.”
Piper admitted that she was, then read Phoebe’s list. “You want the sexy silent type that finds you driving through town on the back of a Harley at three o’clock in the morning. A man who appreciates scented candles, body oils and Italian sheets.” At that point, Phoebe took over, adding, “He’s about hunger and lust and danger. And even though you know all this, even though you know he’ll never meet your friends or share a holiday meal with your family, you still can’t stay away.”
We know, of course, that in season one none of the sisters would find and fall in love with a man possessing all of the above characteristics, or live happily ever after with him when they did. They would find, instead, many men possessing but one or two admirable qualities, and many more possessing traits of a more otherworldly, if not evil, nature.
Phoebe, the youngest sibling, was cast from the beginning as the wild child, the free spirit, the bad girl who after losing her job and being up to her eyeballs in debt, returned in the series’ first episode from New York to San Francisco. She also returned to Piper’s open arms and cold looks from Prue and was immediately forced into a defensive mode, denying the unspoken accusation from her oldest sister that she ever touched Prue’s ex fiancé, Roger (“that Armani-wearing, Chardonnay-slugging trust-funder”).
Further into the season, after Piper had shown an interest in handyman Leo Wyatt (“The Truth is Out There . . . and It Hurts”), Phoebe, while under Prue’s truth spell, admitted that she was only after Leo because Piper was. And when the question was finally out in the open in “The Fourth Sister,” her sisters told her that she was definitely a “boyfriend thief.” Phoebe even dated Rex Buckland, Prue’s boss at the Buckland Auction House, before finding out he was a warlock.
Phoebe’s tendency to find her dates a little too close to home didn’t sit well with her sisters. Prue preferred to keep her work and personal lives separate. And Piper found herself playing peacemaker between her older and younger sisters.
Set up early as a girl intent on a good time, Phoebe went out with Alec, “some hottie she hit on” in Piper’s restaurant, as well as “tall, dark, brooding, very New York” Stefan, a world-famous photographer who invited her up to see his etchings . . . er, photographs, both in “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” At the end of the episode, after Stefan, a.k.a. the demon Javna, had been vanquished, Phoebe admitted that she needed to be more careful in her choice of dates—though at least she was now seeking out men on her own rather than borrowing from her sisters.
Of course when she and Piper cast the spell to attract a lover in “Dream Sorcerer” and Phoebe met Hans (who actually did arrive in her life on a motorcycle), she threw caution to the wind and had “safe sex, a lot of safe sex”—only to eventually feel smothered by this lover who she had attracted for all the wrong reasons. They jumped into bed based on nothing more than a physical attraction, never exploring beneath the surface of her “man wish-list.”
Hans, in fact, not understanding the root of his obsession with Phoebe, eventually turned on her. And romance readers were hardly surprised. The couple’s bond wasn’t based on mutual interests, shared passions, similar outlooks and smoldering heat, but on magic. And as much as the genre’s readers know romance is magic, they also know it’s magic of the unexplainable—not the supernatural—kind.
Phoebe’s most serious love interest in the first season, however, was her ex-boyfriend—the man from her days spent living in New York, the man she wanted to give a second chance now that he was in San Francisco, but the man who ended up being the same one she left behind, one who was always looking for an easy way out.
Seeing Clay again in “Feats of Clay” was a turning point for Phoebe. When Clay reminded her that in New York she needed three jobs to afford her social calendar, she let him know that things had changed. That she had changed. And as viewers, we’d seen it happen. She had become less the wild one than she was upon her return to San Francisco, seemingly intent on settling into her role as the youngest of the Halliwell sisters.
Even though Phoebe couldn’t help but wonder if Clay was the one, even though he charmed her by telling her how much he missed “the day to day of us,” she didn’t deny Piper’s observation that she wouldn’t be the first Halliwell to misjudge a man. Neither did she counter her sister’s belief that she wanted to give Clay a chance because she always sees the good in people.
Even after Clay told her that next time they crossed paths, he hoped he would be the man she always thinks she sees, she finally learned her lesson about inappropriate men and moved forward with her life, taking an active role in her future, admitting she was still looking for adventure and knowing that meant she wasn’t ready to settle down.
During the rest of the first season, Phoebe was more focused on renewing her relationship with her sisters and finding herself and steady employment than on men. Even when she met blind Brent in “Out Of Sight,” she kept their relationship strictly to the business of saving the boys kidnapped by the grimlocks. In this regard, Phoebe closely resembled a heroine found in a chick-lit novel, or in a bildungsroman (a German term indicating a novel of personal growth). Relationship experiments gone awry, she turned her attention to becoming a dependable member of the Halliwell family.
Still, Phoebe quite clearly still believed in love, playing matchmaker between Piper and Josh, encouraging a hemming-and-hawing Piper to let Leo know of her feelings for him and helping Piper over her fear of always falling for the wrong guy.
Phoebe did the same repeatedly for Prue regarding her on-again/offagain relationship with Inspector Andy Trudeau, giving Andy Prue’s cell number despite Prue’s “Cop. Witch. It’s not a love connection” protestation and telling Prue that all she and Andy needed was one hot night to get back on track. When Prue confessed to Phoebe that she believed their secret made it impossible for any of them to have a relationship or a normal life, Phoebe reminded her eldest sister that they had lives and deserved to live and love like everyone else.
Having arrived in San Francisco unexpectedly, Phoebe came a long way in that first season, gaining the respect of both Piper and Prue as a woman capable of holding up her end of their magical triumvirate, as well as settling in and finding her place as their younger sister. As far as Phoebe’s romances went, she seemed to have learned her lesson about keeping her magic fingers out of her love life.
Piper, the middle sister, ever the nurturer, the lover of love, the good girl who is a cross between Emeril and Martha Stewart and admittedly hates to be single, spent the first season continually falling for inappropriate men: as Prue said in “Love Hurts,” “a warlock, a ghost, a geographically undesirable handyman and a very dorky grad student.”
In the series’ first episode, she was dating Jeremy Burns, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle whom she met in the hospital cafeteria the day Grams was admitted. Jeremy handed the ba
wling Piper a napkin—with his phone number on it. (“How romantic,” was Phoebe’s remark.)
Jeremy seemed perfect. He held down a good job and no doubt the accompanying benefits. He was complimentary of Piper’s cooking and paid attention to her interests. He could flirt and banter like the best romance hero. (Opening his fortune cookie in the first episode, he read, “Soon you will be on top—” before Piper took it from him and finished the thought, “—of the world.”)
He wanted to show her beautiful views of the city—the bay, the bridge—and took her to the top of the old Boeing building for a surprise. How romantic, we thought. The perfect boyfriend. Except he was a warlock intent on stealing the sisters’ powers. After he tried to kill Piper and failed, she returned the favor and didn’t. Their relationship ended, uh, explosively.
Remember Mark Chao from “Dead Man Dating”? He and Piper had a perfectly simpatico relationship that held great romantic promise . . . had Mark been alive. Unable to communicate with the non-magical living, Mark told Piper that if his body wasn’t found, a funeral held and a proper burial completed before Hell’s gatekeeper, Yama, captured his soul, he would be taken to Hell forever.
He and Piper then spent the hour working to help the ever-present Inspectors Trudeau and Morris solve Mark’s murder—i.e., the story’s external plot. The internal plot epitomized the perfect progression of a romance as Mark and Piper got to know one another. He explained how he and his mother had relied on each other after his father had died, and how she had taught him everything she knew about cooking.
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